Briarwood's Daniel Robert never wavered in commitment to football

Briarwood Christian wide receiver Daniel Robert will play baseball for Auburn next year. (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Daniel Robert spent plenty of time this summer playing baseball in different parts of the country.

Showcases, tryouts and all-star games kept the Briarwood Christian senior – selected The Birmingham News’ 2011 Metro Player of the Year – earning lots of frequent flyer miles.

A subtle pressure crept in during the summer with some suggesting for Robert, who committed to Auburn in January to play baseball, to forgo his senior football season.

The possibility of injury derailing his promising baseball career was real, especially since Robert played hurt last season after breaking a finger during baseball season.

Robert never wavered. He caught 22 touchdown passes for the Lions along his sophomore and junior seasons.

“Honestly, there was never any indecision,” Robert said. “I knew I wanted to spend every day this fall with my best friends on the practice field. I couldn’t live with myself, especially on Friday nights not being with my friends.”

The Class 5A Lions (4-6) travel to second-ranked Jackson (9-1) for the first round of playoffs on Friday.

The Lions have a tall order in front of them in order to avoid the program's first losing season since the 2004 team finished 5-6. It would be only the third losing season since coach Fred Yancey took over the program in 1990. The Lions have won three championships during Yancey’s tenure and reached the title game five times, including the 2010 season.

The struggles this season weren’t unexpected after Briarwood lost 38 seniors who helped the Lions to a 25-4 record over the previous two seasons. There were 18 of the team's 22 starters among those graduates.

“The season has been difficult because the teams beating us have been playing better than we have,” Yancey said. “We have gotten better every week, but I don’t think we’ve hit our potential. I hope that’s what happens this week.

“Even though things are not always going our way we’re still trying to be resilient. They come to work every week and have great heart. We never give up hope we can win, but also understand we have to be better than we have been to beat people.”

Robert echoes that.

“We knew we lost a lot of talent last year,” Robert said. “We just wanted to make sure we did all we could to make this year as good as it could be. Everybody does a great job of working hard during the week and I really love how we never got our heads down. Coach Yancey does a great job of helping us work hard every week in practice and maximize our potential.”

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound Robert first earned playing time at wide receiver as a sophomore and has been there since. He quarterbacked the Lions during the spring game, but missed much of summer workouts because of baseball commitments so Will Edwards earned the starting spot.

When Edwards was injured during the jamboree, Robert played the first game at quarterback, but moved back to receiver when Chandler Wilkins took over at quarterback.

Different positions are nothing new for Robert. He has played shortstop, third base and pitcher along with outfield for the Lions baseball team.

His first year of football as a seventh-grader, Robert played offensive line. It’s the position his father Greg played for the Auburn Tigers. He was moved to tight end the following season and his athletic abilities finally caught up with his body going into his sophomore season.

Robert first played baseball on a traveling T-ball team as a 4-year-old. The right-hander bats left-handed, the product of playing tennis with his mom and figuring hitting a baseball was like a backhand tennis stroke.

Baseball has always been his forte.

“They’re just different kinds of beasts,” said Robert, who was rated by ESPN as the top junior position player in the state going into the 2012 season. “There’s really nothing like football games on Friday night, but on an every day basis baseball is more fun to me.

“I kind of always grew up playing a lot of baseball and I think I have a better chance in baseball. I always saw myself as a baseball player playing football for fun.”

Despite the love of baseball, Robert remains committed to football and Yancey is a supporter. He said last week there's no doubt in his mind that Robert could play major college football if that was his pursuit.

“He has terrific ability and in my opinion he’s the best wide receiver Briarwood has ever had as far as a three-year starter at the wideout position,” Yancey said. “No one has ever done it better.

Robet has 673 yards receiving and another 10 touchdown catches. That gives him 32 across his career, but he's clearly been a marked man. He's only averaging seven yards per reception in 2012. He averaged 19.5 yards per catch in 2010. His average gain was good for 15.6 yards as a junior.

“He’s clearly our best player and we don’t have other guys who are taking the load off him very often," Yancey said. "He has a lot of toughness about him and he’s a real competitor. He has had a great year.”